Nagaland chief secretary Lalhuma has asked the churches and NGOs to address the issue of “out of school” children in the State.
Expressing concern over a huge number of “school drop outs” and “never enrolled” children in Nagaland, the chief secretary termed this section of the society as the under privileged group that required immediate attention for growth of the State’s human resource development.
Inaugurating the two-day workshop on alternative schooling for NGOs and project assistants of the District Mission Authorities here at DUDA guest house, Friday, Lalhuma said social organizations should be sensitized on the goals and objectives of the Alternative and Innovative Education (AIE) programme under SSA.
The chief secretary, who is also the chairman of State Mission Authority (SMA), SSA Nagaland, expressed hope that with the participation of the community and the churches, Nagaland would be able to achieve the distinction as the first state in the country to have mainstreamed all out-of-school children.
Stating that the inconsistencies in the Census 2001 figure of Nagaland reflected the lack of honesty and weakness in the monitoring mechanism of the State, the chief secretary however said NGOs implementing the Alternative Schooling programme should provide reasonable figure on the number of school drop-outs and also find out the reasons why these children were out of school.
Calling for proper monitoring and supervision in implementing the AIE programme by the NGOs, he said the implementing agencies should be sensitized about the programme.
He also advocated capacity building for teachers in order to upgrade their skills in imparting education to these children.
“Networking between training institutions like SCERT, NGOs and the community is required so that there is proper feedback and progress reports are analyzed systematically,” he added.
Earlier, delivering the key note address, Papari Baruah, senior consultant (Alternative Schooling), Ed. CIL, called for strengthening the existing education system by revising the State policy in accordance with the needs of the States such as access to schooling system, teacher requirement and infrastructure of schools.
Additional Chief Secretary, Banuo Z Jamir, in her speech remarked on the discrepancies in the data provided by the implementing agencies on the number of out of school children and called for corrective measures.